Debian – What ~/.config refers to and how to put files there

configurationdebiangeany

I want to set up a plugin for the Geany editor on a Debian system. It's a theme changing plugin, so I am following this manual. It says:

The simplest way to do this is to copy the contents of the archive
into the ~/.config/geany/filedefs/ folder.

I don't understand this. What do they mean by ~/.config? Is that the default directory where Geany is installed? I have its files at /usr/lib/geany but that doesn't seem to be location they are talking about.

Best Answer

~ is your home directory, usually /home/username. A file or folder name starting with a . is the Linux version of a hidden file/folder. So ~/.config is a hidden folder within your home directory. Open up your file browser to your home folder, then find the option to show hidden files and folders. If you don't see .config, you'll have to create it. Then navigate into it, find or create the geany folder, go into that, then find or create a folder named filedefs. You can then put the relevant files into there.

.config is a convention, defined by XDG Base Directory Specification see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1024114/location-of-ini-config-files-in-linux-unix

Related Question